Scrub up with Exfoliants

There are many options when it comes to adding scrubbiness to your products – everything from salt to sugar to seeds to clay. Exfoliants are primarily used to scrub away dead skin cells to reveal new skin underneath. They are also a cornerstone of many healthy skin-care routines. Exfoliants can vary greatly in size, from large cranberry seeds to very small, very fine powders such as Bamboo Extract. If you want to try a wide variety of options, pick up an Exfoliant Sampler Pack to add a world of colors and scrub effects to your products.

This pack includes 1 oz. samples of eight different exfoliants:

Cranberry Seeds

Crushed Grape Seeds

Strawberry Seeds

Ground Loofah

Medium White Jojoba Beads

Bamboo Extract

Pumice

Colloidal Oatmeal

Your skin type will determine what type of exfoliant is best for you. For example, those with dry skin may prefer the roughness of walnut shells, while those with sensitive skin may prefer something finer, such as colloidal oatmeal. Larger exfoliants, such as shredded loofah and fruit seeds, are wonderful in body scrubs. Exfoliating 2 – 3 times a week is a good place to start, although you should stop using an exfoliant if your skin becomes red or irritated. Consider using a lotion after exfoliating to complete your healthy skin-care routine!

Exfoliants can be used in melt & pour soap, cold process soap and of course scrubs and washes. In melt and pour soap, be sure to let the soap cool to around 120 degrees F before adding the exfoliants or else they will simply sink to the bottom and not suspend. As with other additives, we recommend using 1 teaspoon of exfoliants per pound of soap. Of course you can use more or less depending on what you’re going for, but that is a good ratio to start with.

There are a variety of projects that use exfoliants on the Soap Queen blog. Below are a few of our favorite body, foot and face scrubs:

9 Comments

I’ll be making a CP recipe tomorrow and I wanted to add pumice that I purchased from you recently. I’ve got an 8″ silicon mold, and from what I’ve read in this post I should use 3 tsps of pumice for my recipe. Is that correct? It seems to me like it might be too little, having made salt bars that take 3 or more cups of salt in the recipe !

That is correct! We recommend about 1 tsp. of exfoliants per pound of soap. However, the amount you use depends on your personal preference. If you want your recipe more scrubby, you can definitely add more. I would recommend starting out with about 1 Tbsp. per pound of soap and going from there.

HELP. Love the website When im using products like clay, pumice, seeds etc. They go to top and bottom of my molds when set. I made one batch where they stayed throughout the bars but I havent been successful again. Im making melt and pour soap. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance

Sometimes embedding things into melt and pour soap can be a little tricky! The key is temperature. You want to make sure your soap is on the cooler side, that way it will be more dense and will suspend the additives. If it is too hot and liquidy, the additives can sink to the bottom, or float to the top.

I would recommend adding the items at around 125 degrees, and stirring until the soap reduces to about 120 degrees, or even a little cooler. Then go ahead and pour!

I love using both Bentonite Clay and Pumice in projects, they both provide such nice, gentle exfoliation! I recently made some cold process with Pumice for the first time and I really love it If you get photos for your upcoming projects, we would love to see them on our Facebook page!